Harney & Sons Millerton Shop
13 Main Street • Millerton, NY 12546
518-789-2121 • harney.com/pages/the-millerton-shop
Celebrating 40 years of blending some of the world’s finest teas, Harney & Sons remains a household name in the tea industry. Brigitte Harney, the wife of Michael Harney and daughter-in-law of the late founder, John Harney, oversees the Millerton Shop, a tasting room–café hybrid on Main Street. Outside of town in the scenic Hudson Valley, resides the enormous, trailblazing factory that produces the entirety of the iconic line. (Harney’s SoHo store in New York City is only a 2-hour drive away.) It is safe to say that the exciting and enterprising spirit of New York is deeply ingrained in the ethos of the world-renowned brand.
For Brigitte, taking tea has always been a part of her life, even before her introduction to the Harneys. “My mom lived in England for a year,” Brigitte notes. “As a kid living with my mother in France, when we would get out of school, we would have a snack before dinner. The snack always included tea.” Perhaps, drinking the elixir in her youth properly prepared her for the vast tea consumption to come in her married life and for the important role that she now carries out at the shop.
Since 2005, a charming blue building that has acquired a handsome patina over the years has housed the Millerton Shop. The interior walls of the tasting room are lined with stately black-and-gold tins, adorned with the Harney logo, that hold every type and blend of looseleaf imaginable, and a lovely retail space hosts a variety of their pre-packaged blends, tea accessories for those who enjoy fun teatimes as well as serious ones, and colorful teapots, mugs, and more to peruse.
While the famous company manufacturers hundreds of different teas, there are a few clear top-sellers across Harney & Sons’ e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores. Currently, among the most beloved are “Paris,” a fruity black tea with notes of vanilla and caramel, and “Hot Cinnamon Spice,” a punchy blend of black teas, three types of cinnamon, orange peel, and sweet cloves. One of the female entrepreneur’s personal favorites, for obvious reasons, is the eponymous “Brigitte’s Blend.” It’s an elegant mixture of silvery Ceylon and tippy full-leaf Assam teas specifically created for her by her husband.
At the store, tea tastings are on a first-come-first-served basis depending on staffing, and tasty light bites can be savored in the café to accompany your cup of tea.
Brigitte attributes the success of Harney & Sons to “having great teas at great prices.” For four decades, the brand has presented premium teas to the public in an approachable manner that makes the luxury of drinking exquisite blends a feasible commodity for the masses, as well as connoisseurs.
Harney & Sons Millerton Shop is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
